Author(s): Hill, Stephen,
Binding: Hardback,
Date of Publication: 20/05/2019,
Pagination: 384 pages, Illustrated in B&W throughout,
Series: N/A,
Imprint: Halsgrove,
Published By: Halsgrove,
Book Classification: Cricket, Somerset
ISBN13\EAN\SKU: 9780857043399

Description:

This is the fourth volume in the award-winning series outlining the life of each man who has played first-class cricket for Somerset.

Appropriately enough for a club with a rich history, bursting at the seams with larger-than-life characters, the first person featured here is that great cricketing eccentric, the late Brian Close, who joined the club in 1971, after falling out with Yorkshire, and set about instilling a winning mentality.

At the same time,Tom Cartwright, already at the club, having previously starred for Warwickshire, was charged with coaching an exciting crop of local youngsters: the likes of Ian Botham, Vic Marks and Peter Roebuck, were melded with two up-and-coming Caribbean stars – Viv Richards and Joel Garner – to form a team of all the talents.

Between them, they brought glamour and trophies to a county who had languished in the cricketing doldrums for the best part of a century.

The County Ground in Taunton was suddenly a place where one-day opponents were intimidated and where spectators from all walks of life wished to be and to be seen. But then the atmosphere soured as the club slid into civil war. Slowly, Somerset CCC then clawed their way back to a position where, by the end of the millennium, they were once again in serious contention for trophies.

The text is complemented throughout with quality images, many of them previously unpublished, and the authors have interviewed the vast majority of the 116 players who feature. The pen portraits are varied and colourful. The club’s supporters and, indeed, anyone who has read the first three volumes in this series, would expect nothing less.

Stephen Hill is a former businessman and now a full-time writer. The son of two schoolteachers, he was born in Bishops Lydeard and has supported Somerset CCC since boyhood. He now lives an inconveniently long distance away from Taunton, but continues to follow the fortunes of the county he still loves.

Born in Paulton, Julian Wyatt, a farmer’s son, has also supported Somerset CCC from boyhood and fulfilled his early dreams by playing for them for seven seasons. He then went on to appear for Devon, the county in which he now lives. Since departing the first-class game, he has enjoyed a career as a coach, but has always been a keen writer.